Monkey Business — Equal Work Demands Equal Pay
When someone is treated unfairly — through pay discrimination — it’s so obvious, even a primate knows it.
Udacity Redux: And Then There Was Credit
Udacity students can now transfer credits to Colorado State. Is this the start of something big?
Short-form Publishing — A New Content Category, Courtesy of the Internet
The publication of short works opens up new opportunities for academic publishers that heretofore have had to choose between the forms of the article on one hand and the full-length book on the other.
How Did They Get My Email Address? The Accidental and Plentiful Supply of Academic and Scientific Contacts
The open nature of email addresses on journal sites may be feeding the email harvesting machine for academic emails. Worse, it may also be exposing these for potentially fraudulent activity.
“A Hazard of New Fortunes” — A Review
A review of William Dean Howells’ 1890 novel, “A Hazard of New Fortunes,” which is about finding new business models for media businesses. The book describes an economic landscape that is eerily similar to our own.
The "Facebook Fallacy" and Whipsaw Attitudes Toward Web Advertising
Facebook’s IPO has disappointed many, but to think that it presages a complete meltdown of the online ad market is a bit of an overstatement.
The Reproducibility Initiative — Solving a Problem, or Just Another Attempt to Draw on Research Funds?
A new initiative seeks to solve the reproducibility problem in science, but instead seems to be creating more of a drag on research funds, ignoring the incentives of scientists, and raising barriers to its very utilization.
Georgia State Redux: And Now the Trouncing Is Complete
What once appeared to be a lopsided ruling has, in its final form, turned into something much more definitive.
The NPR Model and the Financing of Scholarly Communication
The “listener support” model works in some cases. This fact alone suggests it may not have a robust future in the funding of scholarly initiatives.
Driving Innovation: Finding the Balance Between Fair Reward and Profiteering
Vitriol may have obscured important points in a post last week. The growing business strategy of our era is to drive the cost of everyone else’s product to zero in order to make more money from your own product. This imbalance stifles innovation and creation.
Review: "Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back"
A recent book tells the story of how technology companies — in the guise of advocates of “open” — have gutted content and culture businesses and the creative ranks that depend on them.
Data-mining the Library
Libraries generate a great deal of information about their own processes, including circulation records. Making that information available to others could be the basis for a consortium to share and market such library data.
Complying with the RCUK Mandate . . . Or Not
Every scholarly publisher in the world suddenly has less that a year to decide what to do with article submissions from the UK. The new Research Council UK (RCUK) mandate applies to all articles submitted beginning April 1, 2013. Do […]
Putting Society Publishing in Context
Society publishing is surrounded by rivalrous groups, which tend to undermine the societies’ activities. It’s time to renew the development of membership through exclusive products.
Developing the Infrastructure for Direct Marketing
In order for publishers to engage in direct marketing, they have to build new infrastructure. Simon & Schuster is hinting at new developments with its use of QR codes.